Tulip -- Niji to Sneaker no Koro（虹とスニーカーの頃）

'Tis a wonderful thing to find those old gems on that nostalgic televised time capsule show "19XX". As I did with the 1980 version a couple of nights ago for Masashi Sada's（さだまさし）tenderhearted "Doukeshi no Sonnet"（道化師のソネット）, I found another chestnut on the 1979 episode last night. But this time, it's actually something that I did hear before but completely forgot in the ever-thickening mists of my memories.

Tulip's（チューリップ）"Niji to Sneaker no Koro" (Around the Time of the Rainbow and Sneakers) is a fairly dramatic rendition of a romance that, alas, wasn't meant to be, as seen through one of the couple that wasn't. Written and composed by vocalist Kazuo Zaitsu（財津和夫）, his lyrics read as if things were just going swimmingly including a romantic barefoot walk in the rain but then they suddenly finish with no happy ending, although the first two lines of the song offer an ominous foreshadowing:

Selfishness is a man's crime
Not forgiving that is a woman's

Not sure how long it's been since the romance faded, but it looks either one or even both of the protagonists here may still be wringing their hands due to the lost opportunity. In any case, that whole arrangement (especially the main chorus) along with the story related in Zaitsu's lyrics strike me as being very Off-Course（オフコース）, and perhaps that's not surprising since Zaitsu and Off-Course member Kazumasa Oda（小田和正）have been good buddies. 

For the band Tulip, "Niji to Sneaker no Koro" may have been a melancholy story but it had a happy ending for Zaitsu and company. Their 16th single from July 1979 became their first Top 10 hit in over 6 years since their No. 1 "Kokoro no Tabi"（心の旅）from May 1973 as it sold over 500,000 records and peaked at No. 6. In fact, I'd say that 1979 was a fine year for Zaitsu himself since he would also have a solo hit out of "Wake Up" later from December. All in all, "Niji to Sneaker no Koro" ended up as the 35th-ranked single of the year.